Monthly Archives: December 2012

i am so in awe of my friends. in 2011 i made and delivered — more or less — on a resolution to meet and spend face to face time with my 325 facebook friends. it was harder than i anticipated and way more rewarding than i expected. in 2012 i made and sort of delivered on meeting new facebook friends.

my facebook friend lesley riley is someone i wasn’t blessed to have as my friend in 2011. she came to the bat girl cave from her home in california in order to say “hey, you’re not just a facebook friend!” i admire her a lot and think she’s adorable!

so it’s getting to be that time again. i think all of us start the year with optimistic plans to lose weight, quit drinking, give up smoking, be more organized. what’s your new years resolution?

file this under depressing: facebook interns make $25,000 more than the average american worker which means you need to seriously rethink everything about the choices you’ve made.

business insider magazine cites salary information gleaned from glassdoor.com in making the claim that interns at the company make an average of $67,000 per year. that’s just about twenty five thousand dollars a year more than the $47,000 that the social security administration says the average american worker takes home.

interns generally are young, motivated college kids who know their way around software and computers. they are in such demand that companies like facebook, google, and microsoft pay them while they’re still in school and even encourage them to drop out of school altogether. product designers, research assistants and software engineers expect to make, on average, over a hundred thousand smackers.

in addition to the george washingtons, interns at facebook get “normal” employee benefits of an iphone, a laptop, access to their gym and three meals a day at the company’s cafeteria. this is not actually the facebook cafeteria. theirs is swanker.

so when you’re thinking the economy is tanking, when you’re wondering whether your master’s degree in art history is being underutilized if you’re working at target, when you think capitalism is a sorry excuse for an economic system, consider a job with mark zuckerberg. apply here today! http://www.glassdoor.com/Job/Facebook-Jobs-E40772.htm

D is for damned, which is what i have felt like for the last three weeks.

i could go on like this for another 22 letters but except for the W i think i will stop. i have been experiencing ativan withdrawal and it’s like having all the anxiety attacks i have avoided or weaseled out of with ativan have been waiting to be unleashed when i say enough.

ativan is a drug used to control anxiety and panic disorder. i have been taking ativan for nearly seven years. every time i get an uptick in my anxiety level, my doctor puts me on a higher dosage. three weeks ago, i was taking three milligrams a day and it wasn’t making me feel particularly calm. but if i didn’t take it, lordy, was i a wreck.

in 2011 i had a new years resolution to meet all 325 of my facebook friends wherever on the planet they might be. i stopped being afraid of things because i was forced to do things i was afraid of every day of the year–fear of flying, of meeting new people, of leaving my own house.

three weeks ago i made a commitment to quit, which started as a drop down to one milligram and then two weeks ago became a dive off the cliff. every phobia i have possessed has returned. every inclination to not leave the house. and sleep? fuggedaboutit! i even felt a fear of posting a blog. just because i stopped doing it everyday. i have the shakes. i have had hideous asthma attacks. all side effects of withdrawal. i have given my ativan to a friend who is both close enough that i can get to the ativan in the case of a real emergency and someone i trust to not take all of them.

i can’t wait to tell my doctor that i don’t need a refill, thank you very much.